Sen. Melissa Hurtado

Existing law establishes the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development in the California Health and Human Services Agency, which oversees various scholarship programs to improve access to health care, including the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program, which provides for the repayment of educational loans obtained by a physician and surgeon who practices in a medically underserved area of the state. Existing law requires the office to maintain a Health Professions Career Opportunity Program tasked with supporting and encouraging minority health professionals in training to practice in health professional shortage areas of California, among other duties. Existing law provides that in administering the National Health Service Corps State Loan Repayment Program in accordance with federal law and regulations, the office is required to strive, whenever feasible, to equitably distribute loan repayment awards between eligible urban and rural program sites, after taking into account the availability of health care services in the communities to be served and the number of individuals to be served in each program site. This bill would require the office to include students and professionals with training in geriatrics in administering the Health Professions Career Opportunity Program, National Health Service Corps State Loan Repayment Program, and the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program. The bill would also state the intent of the Legislature to provide geriatricians practicing in underserved areas access to existing loan repayment programs offered by the state, encouraging more geriatric care providers to practice in federally designated health provider shortage areas and addressing the state's shortage of geriatricians.

Existing law establishes the California Health and Human Services Agency, which consists of various departments and offices, including the Department of Managed Health Care, the State Department of Health Care Services, the State Department of Public Health, and the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Under existing law, those entities administer programs and services related to health care and perform various duties, including providing for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans, administering various public health programs, and performing health policy and planning for the state. By June 1, 2022, or within 90 days of receiving funding after June 1, 2022, this bill would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to convene a Multipayer Payment Reform Collaborative composed of specified individuals and entities, including representatives of organizations representing consumers and the Secretary of California Health and Human Services, and would require the collaborative to propose to the agency Multipayer Payment Reform Pilots (pilots) for the purpose of establishing pilots for primarily fee-for-service primary care practices in areas hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill would require the agency, in collaboration with the collaborative, to work with state regulators, agencies, and departments to ensure that the pilots include as participating payers specified entities, such as health care service plans, would authorize the collaborative to include certain entities as participating payers, and would require the collaborative to propose to the agency matters related to the pilots, including criteria to be adopted by the pilots for primary care practice participation and uniform payment methods to be adopted across payers in the pilots. The bill would also require the agency, at least 3 months before the implementation of a pilot, to provide the Legislature, including the appropriate policy committees of the Assembly and the Senate, with a summary of the proposed pilot, including the structure, eligibility, geography, payment methods, quality and equity metrics, and evaluation criteria. By the 2nd and 4th year following the implementation of the pilots, the bill would require the agency to provide to the Legislature comprehensive evaluations of the pilots that include prescribed information, such as the number of enrollees in the pilots and the health characteristics of the enrollees. The bill would require participating payers in the pilots to provide the agency with information necessary to complete these evaluations. The bill would make related legislative findings and declarations.

Existing law establishes various food assistance programs, including, among others, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , known in California as CalFresh, formerly the Food Stamp Program, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county. This bill would declare that it is the established policy of the state that every human being has the right to access sufficient affordable and healthy food. The bill would require all relevant state agencies, including the State Department of Social Services, the Department of Food and Agriculture, and the State Department of Public Health, to consider this state policy when revising, adopting, or establishing policies, regulations, and grant criteria when those policies, regulations, and grant criteria are pertinent to the distribution of food and nutrition assistance. The bill would also require, by January 1, 2023, the State Department of Social Services, in consultation with the Department of Food and Agriculture and the Department of Conservation, to submit a report to the Legislature relating to food access and recommendations to increase the availability of sufficient affordable and healthy food.

Existing law prohibits a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains personal information about that individual, including, but not limited to, the individual's social security number, telephone number, driver's license number, or credit card account number, unless that personal information is contained within sealed correspondence and cannot be viewed from the outside of that sealed correspondence. Existing law, commencing on or before January 1, 2023, prohibits a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail that contains an individual's social security number unless the number is truncated to its last 4 digits or in specified circumstances. This bill would instead require, as soon as feasible, but not later than January 1, 2023, a state agency to stop sending any outgoing United States mail that contains an individual's social security number unless the number is truncated to its last 4 digits or in specified circumstances. The bill, commencing on or before October 1, 2021, would prohibit, with exceptions, the Employment Development Department from sending any outgoing United States mail to an individual containing the individual's social security number, unless that social security number is replaced with a modified unique identifier or the number is truncated to its last 4 digits. Existing law creates, in the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the Employment Development Department, which is vested with the duties, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction with respect to job creation activities. Existing law requires the Director of Employment Development to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility for and the amount of benefits in the unemployment insurance program to identify those policies and practices doing certain things, including, but not limited to, providing little or no value in identifying or preventing fraud or abuse in the unemployment insurance program. This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2022, to identify the fraud prevention efforts it can adjust to improve effectiveness during periods of high demand for benefits. The bill would also require the department, on or before January 1, 2022, using existing resources, to designate a single unit responsible for coordinating fraud prevention and align the unit's duties with best practices for detecting and preventing fraud. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Existing law establishes the Office of Health Equity in the State Department of Public Health for the purposes of aligning state resources, decisionmaking, and programs to accomplish certain goals related to, among others, health equity and protecting vulnerable communities. Existing law requires the office to perform certain functions in connection to health equity. This bill would, on July 1, 2022, establish the California Health Equity Program, a competitive grant program administered by the Office of Health Equity to community-based nonprofit organizations, community clinics, local health departments, and tribal organizations to take actions related to health equity. The bill would establish the California Health Equity Fund in the State Treasury and, upon appropriation by the Legislature, would make moneys in the fund available for the purposes of the grant program. The bill would also establish the California Health Equity Fund Oversight and Accountability Committee, a 15-member committee with specified membership, to monitor the distribution, implementation, and impact of local and regional grants funded by the California Health Equity Fund and make reports about the status of the program and related recommendations to specified entities, among other duties.

Existing law establishes various programs to facilitate the expansion of the health care workforce in rural and underserved communities, including, but not limited to, the Health Professions Career Opportunity Program, the California Registered Nurse Education Program, and the Steven M. Thompson Medical School Scholarship Program. This bill, contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature, as specified, would create the California Medicine Scholars Program, a 5-year pilot program commencing January 1, 2023, and would require the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development to establish and facilitate the pilot program. The bill would require the pilot program to establish a regional pipeline program for community college students to pursue premedical training and enter medical school, in an effort to address the shortage of primary care physicians in California and the widening disparities in access to care in vulnerable and underserved communities, including building a comprehensive statewide approach to increasing the number and representation of minority primary care physicians in the state. The bill would require the office to contract with a managing agency for the pilot program, as specified. The bill would require the pilot program to consist of 4 Regional Hubs of Health Care Opportunity (RHHO) to achieve its objectives, and would require each RHHO to include, at a minimum, 3 community colleges, one public or nonprofit, as defined, 4-year undergraduate institution, one public or nonprofit, as defined, medical school, and 3 local community organizations. The bill would require the managing agency to appoint an objective selection committee, with specified membership, to evaluate prospective RHHO applications and select RHHOs that meet certain requirements to participate in the pilot program. The bill would require each selected RHHO to enter into memoranda of understanding between the partnering entities setting forth participation requirements, and to perform other specified duties, including establishing an advisory board to oversee and guide the programmatic direction of the RHHO and developing partnership agreements with one or more campus-based learning communities, groups, or entities to assist with outreach, recruitment, and support of students. The bill would require the selection process to be completed by June 30, 2022. This bill would require each RHHO to recruit and select 50 California Medicine Scholars each calendar year from 2023 to 2026, inclusive, in accordance with specified criteria, and to provide, by December 31, 2023, and by that date of each year thereafter, up to and including 2026, a status report on the implementation of the pilot program to the managing agency and the office, including data and information collected by each RHHO during the applicable program year. The bill would require the managing agency and the office to jointly prepare and submit to the Legislature a final report evaluating the success of the pilot program, including the data and information provided by the RHHOs, in accordance with specified metrics. The bill would declare that its provisions are severable. This bill would make these provisions inoperative on June 30, 2027, and would repeal the provisions as of January 1, 2028.

This measure would designate a specified portion of State Route 65 in the County of Tulare as the Fire Captain Ramon Figueroa and Firefighter Patrick Jones Memorial Highway. The measure would request that the Department of Transportation determine the cost of appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, erect those signs.

This bill would proclaim the week of April 18, 2021, to April 24, 2021, inclusive, as Adult Education Week, and would honor the teachers, administrators, classified staff, and students of adult education programs statewide for their efforts, persistence, and accomplishments.

Existing federal law provides for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , known in California as CalFresh, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county. Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to establish a food assistance program, known as the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) , to provide assistance to a noncitizen of the United States if the person's immigration status meets the eligibility criteria of SNAP in effect on August 21, 1996, but the person is not eligible for SNAP benefits solely due to their immigration status, as specified. Existing law also makes eligible for the program an applicant who is otherwise eligible for the program, but who entered the United States on or after August 22, 1996, if the applicant is sponsored and the applicant meets one of a list of criteria, including that the applicant, after entry into the United States, is a victim of the sponsor or the spouse of the sponsor if the spouse is living with the sponsor. This bill instead would require the department to use state funds appropriated for CFAP to provide nutritional benefits to households that are ineligible for CalFresh benefits solely due to their immigration status. The bill would eliminate the distinctions based on when the noncitizen applicant entered the country and would eliminate the sponsorship and other listed criteria requirements for eligibility on a noncitizen who entered the country on or after August 22, 1996. The bill would require the amount of nutrition benefits provided to each CFAP household to be identical to the amount that would otherwise be provided to a household eligible for CalFresh benefits, and would require eligibility determination criteria, reporting, recertification, and verification requirements, and the application process and timeliness standards for CFAP to be identical to those required of households eligible for, or applying for, CalFresh benefits. The bill would become operative on the date that the department has notified the Legislature that the Statewide Automated Welfare System can perform the necessary automation to implement the bill, and the Legislature has appropriated funds for purposes of the bill. To the extent this bill would expand eligibility for CFAP, which is administered by the counties, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.